Rail users fear closure will shut door on potential

Matt Stewart | 10th March 2010

The threatened closure of the Masterton-to-Woodville rail line will have little economic effect on Mauriceville's Hatuma Lime Company, which recently announced it was returning to rail to transport its products.
The company uses the Palmerston North-Gisborne line. But Hatuma director of operations and production Daniel Topp said the proposed closure _ belt-tightening by KiwiRail _ was a blow from a personal perspective for the longstanding family business.
''It's disappointing _ a hell of a lot of work went into that line. To see it decommissioned is a shame,'' Mr Topp said.
The Mauriceville works were originally sited to make the best use of lime deposits and the Masterton-Woodville line when lime transportation was free due to government subsidies.
The company last used the line in 1989 when about 10,000 tonnes of dicalcic phosphate was freighted into Mauriceville.
Mr Topp said the company had four sites including three quarries and a distribution centre at Marton, which was supplied by its Waipukurau quarry. Before hearing of the potential closure, Hatuma was looking at supplying Marton from Mauriceville, Mr Topp said. ''We were looking forward to utilising all our assets ...

I'd like to think they don't do anything silly like ripping up the rail lines.''
Meanwhile, John Bovis, Steam Incorporated excursion organiser, said the closure of the north Wairarapa line would threaten the popular Eketahuna Express excursion.
The January journey is one of Steam Incorporated's most popular day trips and was growing every year, attracting sell-out numbers of passengers.
Any closure will also thwart Steam Incorporated's plans to bring back a Wellington-Wairarapa-Manawatu-Wellington loop _ a route Mr Bovis had planned for late winter.
''Once you close a line, it's big money to reopen and rebuild the track,'' Mr Bovis said.
''But the biggest problem is changing environments _ if a major exporter or port company change their plans or market in two years or five years the line could become an essential link in a changing distribution pattern.''
Mr Bovis cited the example of the Greymouth-Christchurch line, which looked to be in jeopardy 20 years ago but was ''now one of the top-performing lines in the country''.
KiwiRail chief executive Jim Quinn said the closure of minor lines including north Wairarapa and Napier-Gisborne ''is one of a number of options we have looked at as we seek to put the business on a commercial footing''.
Currently the north Wairarapa line has no regular traffic and costs about $2million a year to maintain.
''However, in making a decision on the line's future, we would also need to look at the costs of improving the line to the standard we would want it to meet in the event that it was used by regular traffic,'' Mr Quinn said.
''At this stage, the only minor line where work has advanced to community engagement in detail has been the Stratford-Okahukura Line in the Taranaki-King country area.''
Mr Quinn said that when individual lines were singled out, communities often came up with ideas to improve viability. ''In almost all cases, these ideas have been advanced and considered in the past, without the business materialising. Our advice to communities who advocate for keeping lines in their region open is to work on these ideas and turn them into reality,'' he said.